I am not one to publicly voice my opinion on politics or social issues, but this story has ignited a fire in me and others that will not quickly burn out. The story goes like this:
January 17 started off as any ordinary day but quickly took a disturbing turn for the worst and ended with an unconscious body discovered behind a dumpster and a set of paperwork headed “Rape Victim.” In a matter of hours, several 20-somethings attended a party, where they innocently drank too much, as many college students do. And in a matter of hours, two lives were “deeply altered.” One, the life of a young woman who will spend the remainder of her years living fearfully in a body that no longer belongs to just her. The other, the life of a male collegiate athlete turned rapist who, his father claims, "will never be his happy-go-lucky self.”
On January 17 2015, an anonymous 23-year-old woman was brutally raped while she was in an unconscious state. Her half-naked, nearly lifeless body was left behind a dumpster near Stanford’s campus. The victim later woke up in a nearby hospital completely unaware of the events that had taken place just hours prior. It was not until the story hit the news that the victim was made aware of the severity of the events of that fateful evening. While reading an article online, she learned that she had been “found unconscious, with [her] hair disheveled, long necklace wrapped around [her] neck, bra pulled out of [her] dress, dress pulled over [her] shoulders and pulled above [her] waist, that [she] was butt naked all the way down to [her] boots, legs spread apart, and had been penetrated by a foreign object, by someone [she] didn’t recognize,” as stated in a letter read at the defendant's sentencing last week. She was sexually assaulted with absolutely no memory of the event.
The defendant, 20-year-old Brock Turner, was convicted of three separate felony charges: sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object and assault with an intent to commit rape. He was sentenced to six months in county jail with three years’ parole, and possibility of sentence reduction. Let me restate that once again: A young man raped an intoxicated, unconscious young woman, was accused, tried, and found guilty of three accounts of sexual assault and sentenced to six short months in county jail. The defendant’s father described the conviction as a “steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” A mere slap on the wrist, if you ask me.
As if this horror story couldn’t get any more morbid, Turner feels as if he is the victim. His logic is so twisted that he confidently believes this isn’t a matter of rape or sexual assault, but rather, a matter of “campus drinking culture and the sexual promiscuity that goes along with that.” The victim made the decision to drink, which certainly led to the intense sexual promiscuity put off by her unconscious body, right?
A majority of society seems to be in an uproar about this case, and the only people that seem to be dismissing it are the defendant and his family. In a letter released this weekend, his mother begged, “Why him?” Why? Because he violated a woman without her consent. Consensual sex is the only type of “sex” that exists. Non-consensual sex isn’t “sex,” it’s rape, and that is what is seemingly being overlooked here. It seems as though the law and the Turner family are not recognizing that a woman was sexually assaulted in this at all.
This isn’t about excessive drinking at college campuses around the nation or sexual promiscuity, this is about rape and the severe impact it has on a victim. Plain and simple. The focus of this story remains in the right place among the public, but the conviction proves just how twisted and unjust a situation like this can turn out to be. The issue that lies within rape culture is the logic of those such as Brock Turner who genuinely believe that alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity are to blame for a tragedy like this. Instead of educating people on the way to control themselves in situations where alcohol is present, it’s time to shift to educating people to receive clear consent, to recognize another’s limits, to, put it simply, not rape another person.
